Further account of the river Ouse—remarkable phenomenon—the poet Cowper—supposed etymology of the name of Wisbeach—the Ouse diverted from its ancient course and outlet—King John’s disastrous passage over that river, in his last progress from Lynn—Extract from Vancouver.
In the respectable work called The Beauties of England, this remarkable circumstance is quoted from Walsingham relating to the river Ouse—That on the first of January 1399 it suddenly ceased to flow between the villages of Snelson and Harrold near Bedford, leaving its channel so bare of water that the people walked at the bottom for full three miles. [8] So strange a phenomenon seems not very easy to account for. It is said to have been for a long time considered as ominous of those dire dissentions and bloody wars which the opposite claims of the rival Houses of York and Lancaster shortly afterward occasioned. Nor is it at all wonderful that such an idea should gain credit in those dark and superstitious times: but to men of enlightened minds it must appear a very idle and pitiful conceit. A Dr. Childrey endeavoured to account for the said phenomenon, by supposing the stream above to have been congealed by a sudden frost: but this also is very properly deemed untenable by the writers of the work above mentioned; and they assign, as the most probable cause, in their opinion, that the earth had suddenly sunk in some part of the channel, so as to form there a deep and capacious cavity, into which the waters flowed till it was filled up, leaving the channel below in the mean time nearly dry, so that people might then actually walk at the bottom, as the story asserts. This appears reasonable enough, and was probably the real case; but as it cannot be now very interesting there seems no need to investigate it any further.
Dull and uninspiring, and in no sense classical ground, or a favourite haunt of the muses, as the banks of the Ouse have been generally, and perhaps justly considered, it must not be forgotten that they are become of late entitled to no small portion of celebrity, by the distinguished productions of the ingenious and excellent Cowper, one of the best, if not the very best of all our English poets of these latter days. He spent the greatest part of his time, and composed most of his works in the vicinity of this river. Henceforth it may therefore be deemed a classic stream: but it will be long, perhaps, before its banks shall have again the honour of numbering among their inhabitants a poet or a man of equal worth, genius, or renown. [9]
Here it may be proper further to observe, that the Ouse did not always visit Lynn, or pass that way in its progress to the Ocean. In ancient times its course is said to have been by Wisbeach, to which that town probably owes its name: Wis, or Wys, being apparently but another name of the Ouse, and Wisbeach the very same thing with Ousebeach, and signifying the beach, side, or bank of the Ouse; in other words, a place or town on the Shore and near the mouth of that river. [10]
What diverted this river from its ancient and original course is said to have been a great inland flood, which, meeting with obstruction, choked up the channel (already become bad and neglected) broke over the banks, and deluged the fens to a vast extent; from the effects of which they have never been fully recovered to this day.
This flood so deprived of a passage to the sea by the usual channel, and consequently overflowing the adjacent country to a great depth, became a most grievous and ruinous annoyance to the Fen people. At last, in order to remove so unbearable and terrible a nuisance, instead of taking common sense for their guide, and following nature, by opening the channel to the ancient outfall at Wisbeach, they determined, seemingly, to force nature, and set common-sense at defiance, by opening a passage for the inundating waters, and consequently for the future course of the great Ouse, the Cam, and the Larke into the narrow bed of the lesser Ouse, from Little-port Chair to Priests Houses, across that ridge, or higher ground, by which nature seemed to have forbidden the union of these rivers. [11]
In this ill judged and preposterous measure most of the existing evils in regard to the bad state of the Lynn and Wisbeach Harbours, the inland navigation and the drainage of the Fens have probably originated. The Ouse and the other rivers before mentioned have ever since followed the same new and unnatural track: Nor is it now very likely that they will ever again be permitted to follow any other. This memorable event, according to Dugdale, happened in the reign of Henry the third: so that in the reign of King John, the great patron of Lynn, the river or body of fresh water which flowed that way was but very small and narrow; and it was in crossing the Ouse, which did not then pass by Lynn, that he lost his baggage and treasures, and probably many of his men. Ancient records say that it was in crossing Wellstream, which was then the name of the Ouse in its approach to Wisbeach and the Sea, that the said King suffered those losses. [12]
The following Extract from Vancouver’s Appendix to his Agricultural Report will serve, it is thought, to corroborate some of the foregoing observations.—
“From the highlands in Suffolk (between the Mildenhall and Brandon rivers) to the east of Welney, Outwel, Emneth, and thence to the sea a positive dividing ground exists, formed by the hand of nature, strongly marked, and distinctly to be seen between the waters of the Lynn and of the Wisbeach Ouse. The hanging level, or natural inclination of the Country on the north side of this dividing ground draws the waters off to the sea through the lesser Ouse to the outfall of Lynn; and on the south side of it draws them off to the sea through the greater Ouse to the outfall of Wisbeach. To the cutting through this dividing ground, in order to force the water of the greater into the lesser Ouse, are all the evils of the south and middle levels of the fens, and of the country below originally and solely to be ascribed. At this time the bed of the Ouse where Denver Sluices now stand, was at least 13 feet below the general surface of the surrounding country; and then it was that, by the free action and reaction of the tides the waters flowed five hours in the haven of Lynn, ascended unto the Stoke and Brandon rivers, and into other streams which nature had wisely appropriated to be discharged through that outfall; forming the bed of the Ouse to one gradually inclined plain from the junction of the principal branches of that river into the low country to the level of the Ocean, very near or in the harbour of Lynn. The Counteracting this disposition of nature by forcing a greater quantity of water into the river than it could discharge into the sea during the time of ebb, necessarily occasioned the highland and foreign waters to override all those, which during the time of ebb, would naturally have drained into the Lynn river, and gave the waters of Buckingham and Bedford an exit into the sea in preference to those which lay inundating the country within a few miles, of their natural outfall.—In this condition at present are all the lower parts of the country bordering upon the Lynn Ouse; and the country above Denver Sluices, Downham, Marshland, and Bardolph fens, exhibits the most important of many other melancholy examples and evidences of it. In the higher parts of the country the consequences of this measure seem to have been severely experienced on the lands exposed to the unembanked waters of the old Ouse, between Hermitage and Harrimere. The Old Bedford river was then cut from Erith to Salter’s Lode, as a slaker to the Ouse, to relieve the country through which the Ouse flowed, from Erith to Ely. The Ouse waters thus divided a great part of them descended through the Old Bedford river in a straight line of twenty miles into the Lynn Ouse. But as that work was judged insufficient and defective, the New Bedford, or one hundred foot river was determined upon, and Sluices were erected at Hermitage to drive all the water of old Ouse from Erith (through the One hundred foot) into the Lynn Ouse; but that river not having sufficient capacity to utter them to sea, they reverted up the Ouse, the Stoke and Brandon rivers, drowning the whole of that country, and finally urging the necessity of erecting Denver Sluices, as the only apparent cure for the evils with which the country was then oppressed, and seemed further threatened with. In the execution of this business, with a view of bringing the bottom of the Ouse on a level with that of the hundred foot river (which was cut only five feet deep) it was judged expedient to raise a Dam eight feet high across the bed of the Ouse, upon the top of which the Sole or base of Denver Sluices was laid. This measure has not only defeated the purpose it was designed to promote, but has been the unfortunate cause of a body of sand and sea sediment being deposited in the bed of the Lynn Ouse at least eight feet deep at Denver Sluices, and only terminating in its injurious consequences at the mouth of the Lynn Channel. This shews to every calm and candid mind the necessity of duly considering the probable effects of counteracting the laws of nature, in cases where nature appears experimentally to have had success on her side.—From a due consideration of the obstacles which appear at this time to exist in what has long been considered the principal outfalling drain to the Middle and South levels of the fens, it is surely reasonable to direct our attention to the general inclination of the country with respect to the sea, and to what has all along been pointed out by nature as the main outlet thither, for the waters of the middle and south levels, and see if some means cannot yet be devised for recovering the general course of the ancient and voluntary passage of the waters through their natural channel of Wisbeach to the sea.”
The above passage merits serious and particular attention. The undisputed and indisputable fact, that the course of the Ouse lay formerly by Wisbeach, seems a clear and decisive proof that it was its natural course, and so may be considered as corroborating a great part at least of the above reasoning. Upon the whole, therefore, it seems highly probable that the evils now existing and complained of, as to the bad state of the Wisbeach and Lynn harbours, the inland navigation and fen drainage, have mostly originated in the abovementioned desertion of the Ouse from its ancient and natural outfall, and the forcing of it to Lynn through the channel of the lesser Ouse, in the 13th century, and reign of Henry III. as was before observed.